


Relax

by savorycheeks



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Drugs, M/M, Mental Coercion, Murder, Murder Husbands, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-23 21:58:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4893853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savorycheeks/pseuds/savorycheeks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know, Will, you worry too much. You'd be much more comfortable if you relaxed with yourself."</p>
<p>Hannibal decides to make Will relax with himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relax

Will is... relaxed.

Or, that's not quite the word. He's groggy, and the room is so bright, and he... can't move? His arms won't go anywhere and-- oh, there's rope on his wrists, tied to a chair in the basement of their safe-house, and his eyelids droop as he ponders his situation.

He knows distantly, in a corner of his mind like a boat far out at sea, that he should be frightened or angry, but instead he's just-- curious. He feels warm, and relaxed, and curious.

A voice cuts through the fog, "Ah, Will. I calculated the dose carefully, but your timing is even better than I anticipated." Hannibal's steps fall softly on the cement floor. He gently tips Will's chin up until he's looking up at him. "With this particular cocktail it can be so difficult to tell."

The words stack and sort themselves in Will's mind, jumbling until he makes sense of them. "You... drugged me? Hmm, I f... I don't think I will like this."

"But you are enjoying it now, I imagine.” Hannibal murmurs, amusement reaching his eyes. “It's an unorthodox psychiatric method, but I find it can be profoundly effective. You need positive associations, Will. Your mind has spent too much time torturing you for its own longings."

Will's thoughts sharpen slightly, coherency slipping back into the world around him, but the warmth, the nearly electric hum of his body remains. "What do I need to... associate with? Positively?"

Hannibal's face is inches from his own and he smiles, his eyes crinkled and sparkling impossibly bright, burning. His hand is a blur of many hands as he gestures behind himself to the man seated opposite Will. Depending on his focus, the man --thirty-five or forty years old medium build with close-cropped sandy hair and thick ropes fastening him to a simple metal chair and terrified, of course-- seems to be growing more and less distant, like a focusing lens. His breath escapes in ragged whining around the gag, and every sound makes him jump. Will's not sure if the blindfold is, ultimately, making the man more or less afraid. Will concentrates and manages to hold the man steady in his field of vision. He looks back to Hannibal.

"We've established that righteous killing comes quite easily to you, and with enough rationalizing you don't feel the need to torture yourself after the fact.” Will blinks and is tugging the knife through Dolarhyde's belly as hot blood coats his face. He is cutting meat from Randall Tier's and beating his face in at once. Will licks his lips and tongues at the still-tender gash in his cheek. Hannibal’s lips don’t sync with his words, and his skin glows with each point of light upon it, supernaturally radiant. “Children learn, eventually, that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are really only the lies of well-meaning parents. Though disappointing, it's an easy truth to bear, because somewhere within they always knew it, and its purpose. But when we outgrow our belief that the boogie-man waits for us under our bed, do we truly stop believing? Or do we rationalize, banish our nightmares back to where we control them: our own minds? We know dangers lurk in the dark, but we keep them well at bay."

"We learn to thrive," Will breathes, " in the darkness" 

Hannibal steps to the side, and grazes a finger down Will's cheek, over the healing wound. Will shudders at the touch, which sends light, teasing shocks through his skin. He leans into it, and he can hear the smirk in Hannibal's voice as he continues. "You've outgrown the lie of your morality, Will. What matters is that which you know to be true. The beauty of your freedom is yours to behold. Ours."

Will considers this, tasting the words and the crackle of fear in the air, and wishing Hannibal would touch him again. "The existence of right and wrong isn't relevant. It is..." Will begins. His head swims around the answer, swimming through the dark, lovely halls of Hannibal's mind. "...our understanding of larger elements, of art and magnificence. God is in all things, but these fleeting moments especially."

"Entropy is unavoidable in this life, but we can control the descent." Hannibal says, gripping and rubbing small circles into the back of Will’s neck. A reward, an encouragement. 

"They all die, but you elevate them. You elevated yourself."

Lips pressed to his ear, hot and echoing, "as you can, Will." Each repetition of Will's name sounds like an affirmation, like the bead of a rosary counted in his teeth. 

Hannibal approaches the man in the chair, who squirms with renewed vigor. A blade carves a shallow trench into his belly and the man screams, screams so loud that the echoes bounce between Will's ears long after the man exhausts his breath. Hannibal slices several thin, narrow sheets from his abdomen. They are placed, dripping and strikingly red --glowing, as Hannibal is-- onto a fine plate that sits upon a waist-high table to Hannibal's right. The man wails at each pass of the knife, but grows more weary as his pile of offered flesh grows.

Will absorbs the scene absently. The part of him that's out to sea waves its arms, signal flares and flags of warning begging attention, but Will observes quietly, every shadow thrumming with unreality.

The room, tilting on its axis, pulses around Will, breathing in time with him. The impossible shine of blood spreads to the floor at Hannibal’s feet, and the man in the chair loses consciousness.

Hannibal stands, plate of flesh in hand and moves quickly, Will’s eyes struggling to follow. His gaze is pulled again to the blood at the floor, and he reaches to touch it and-- he is still tied down-- a small whine escapes his throat. Hannibal looks over his shoulder with a bemused expression and a click-click-click of a gas stove ignition. Hannibal’s fingers move easily, fluidly through the motions of oiling the pan and dropping pieces one at a time to its surface. 

“Would you like me to untie you, Will? Can I trust you?” Hannibal’s words ring with a light confidence.

Will imagines running fingers through his hair, through the blood on the floor. He imagines his fingertips brushing the collar of Hannibal’s shirt and casting shadows on his glowing skin. He imagines begging Hannibal to touch him.

“You can trust me,” he says, instead. “Hannibal… I know you know this, but, I feel very good right now.”

Hannibal maneuvers the sizzling pan as a conductor for an orchestra. A soft chuckle escapes his lips. “Good.”

“No, not-- I mean it is, but it won’t be. I feel so good right now, and when you make me feel good Hannibal, it’s because… it’s horrific. The other shoe drops and it’s another body that I-- I can't…” Will takes unsteady breaths and squeezes his eyes shut.

When he opens them again--only a second later, he's sure and not sure at all-- Hannibal's hands are tilting his head up and looking into his eyes, clearly checking for some indication or another. "Will, you needn't worry at this moment. Do you feel safe?"

Will is drowning in Hannibal's touch, clinical though it is. Waves of endorphins, it must be, crashing into him and beating his rational mind on the the rocks. "Yes--" He blurts out, before considering the question earnestly. "I shouldn't, but--"

"Do you trust me, Will?"

Will snorts. "Not even a little, hah--" Hannibal tilts Will's head forward once more, hands on either temple, demanding his focus. 

"In this moment, Will, I am helping you. Do you trust me?" 

Hannibal is blinding him, the light radiating from his eyes, points of illumination boring into and seeing him --and worse, Will seeing concern, the beginnings of desperation-- "With my life." he says. 

Hannibal smiles, warm and affectionate. He pulls the knife he'd used to cut the strips of flesh now cooling on the stove top. Will sees the blade slicing him open, collarbone to navel, and Hannibal, a crown of antlers adorning him, dipping his tongue into the wound, shining his searing light into the inky blackness of his body, and Will whispers, "yes..." before his tenuous grasp on reality returns to him.

If it returns, really. If he had it to begin with.

Hannibal cuts Will's wrists free, taking one in his hand and kissing it, just the slightest caress of lips over his delicate skin. 

"I feel like I'm coming apart... God, this feels too good and it hurts, and I don't know--" Will reaches out, tugging at Hannibal's shirtsleeves. "--please, just, touch me or I might slip away, turn to mist, to spatter, cataloged and photographed and only connected to you in unprovable ways, I want..."

Hannibal places a reassuring hand over Will's own, sliding the knife into his unsteady grip. "Now is not the time. You have one more thing to do." Rising and once again standing at Will's side, Hannibal gestures again to the man in the chair. His breathing is even, but he seems to duck in and out of consciousness, pulled to cross purposes by blood-loss and terror.

"It's so bright. The blood, it's so..." Will stands. He can't articulate, and then he does, "This is what you see, the radiance pours out and it's blinding and you take it and you consume it.” It sounds like nonsense as he says it, but Will can’t stop. “They can't, but you can." Slowly to steady his balance, Will approaches the victim. His victim.

Theirs.

The blood, just staining the toe of his boot, reaches out to him, covers him, incubates him. It's slick and tepid between his fingers, and Will's not sure when he knelt down in it, but the smell is sharp in his nostrils. 

He looks at the man, wounded and helpless, muscles fluttering beneath his skin like feathers, and he can't...

"Would it help to know that he is not a very nice man?" Hannibal supplies. "I could elucidate on his crimes, but I doubt it would be of any therapeutic value to you."

Will's hesitation grows heavy on his limbs. "I understand, but... I'm not you." His empty hand reaches out, despite himself, to touch the red, red gashes. The groans elicited sound distant and inconsequential. "Morality or not, I'm not God, I can't just decide someone deserves..."

"I believe you can, Will. What is deserved only matters within the framework of a subjective morality, which you are above.” Hannibal hasn’t moved, but his voice sounds closer. “I see your potential. I will help you realize it."

Will hooks a finger under the blindfold and pulls it off, staring into an unfiltered terror that he recognizes but cannot, in this moment, relate to. They each stare, dumbfounded.

"You could imagine me, if you like." Hannibal says. "Imagine it is me before you."

Will opens his mouth to protest but the image comes too quickly, Hannibal in his smugness, Abigail's blood pouring endlessly from his mouth and staining both of them. This blood is no longer bright but dark and impenetrable. The more it touches Will, he knows, it will never come off. His only option is to fill his lungs with it, to release the deluge.

Will tips the man's head back and slices deep and brutal into his neck. He carves a ragged trench from which blood, bright and beautiful and radiant again, pours out and coats him, his clothing, the floor. 

Air rushes from Will in a breath he didn't know he had been holding. He staggers back as the last pulses drip to the floor. Hannibal catches him before he knows he's falling, and turns Will to face him. He strokes Will's head, pulling them into an embrace, and it feels like agonizing bliss.

Hannibal guides him back to his chair, and disappears for a moment that Will cannot measure in any meaningful way. When he returns it is with a plate; upon it are placed six delicate-looking roses, expertly sauteed and lightly seasoned. The food, in the familiar way it always has, smells incredible. Hannibal pinches a rose between his thumb and forefinger, offering it to Will.

Will opens his mouth, chews, and swallows. He gazes up at Hannibal, who now looks happy, full to bursting in his restrained way. 

They share what remains on the plate, and Hannibal sets it aside, kneeling before Will and drinking in the sight of him.  
Will's rational mind, dashed against the rocks, perhaps not dead but certainly down for the count, has no input for him now. The only thing in his universe at this moment is Hannibal's hand absently-- does he do anything absently, really?-- stroking his arms, tracing impermanent designs in the drying blood.

\---

Will wakes in the morning --when had he fallen asleep?-- to the sounds and smells of Hannibal's machinations in the kitchen. He's tucked safely in bed with the beginnings of sunshine coming through the blinds. The previous night floods his mind, echoes of a terrible, deep-to-the-bones satisfaction rattling between his ribs. Will wants to resist the flutter in his chest as he sees, again, Hannibal's skin shining through the shadows that consume him. He prods his cheek where Hannibal's fingers had felt like a holy touch. 

Will remembers tearing open his --their-- victim's throat and picturing Hannibal's face as he did it. He remembers eating the bouquet of fleshy roses afterward.

He doesn't tremble. His heart remains steady. Will remembers taking the life of a stranger, and he wants to knock his head into something to jostle the wretched, consuming guilt from where it must be hiding. 

Instead, he stands and straightens the sheets. They're dry and still scented with mild detergent. Throwing a light robe over his shoulders, Will emerges to find Hannibal exactly where he's supposed to be, preparing their breakfast.

The scent that wafts from the sizzling pan is precisely the same as that of their small shared dinner. Will is ravenous.

Hannibal turns his head when Will takes a seat at their little table. A naked smile lights his face.

"Good morning, Will. How are you feeling?"

"Like I was drugged last night, and tied to a chair. How are you feeling, Doctor?" Will challenges, but his face only betrays a sort of wounded amusement.

"Your memory is relatively clear then? Good." Hannibal transfers a handful of something green and freshly chopped to the pan. He stirs the ingredients a moment before turning back to Will. "You slept well last night." 

"Yeah, well, you know. You stay up late, get coerced into killing someone and then eating them... really just takes it out of you." 

Hannibal responds, unphased by the teasing, "You need a hearty breakfast. Then we can discuss disposal of the body. I have an idea or two, but I'm interested in what you might throw together."

Will laughs and hates that it's an earnest one. "Don't you think you're pressing your luck? I slit the throat of a dying man, while under your influence. You fed him to me. Careful, Doctor. Any more and I might just crack."

Hannibal pours a glass of orange juice and sets it in front of Will. He returns his attentions to the pan as he speaks. "I'm a greedy man, Will. And far too selfish to break you." He pours the steaming contents of the pan onto two plates, carefully arranging fruit and garnish to his liking. "You've made excellent progress, and I intend to make use of the momentum." Hannibal sets each of their plates on the table and seats himself. "Your potential is rising closer to the surface, and you can feel it. Let me make it true, for you, Will." Hannibal pauses, tips his fork just slightly, indicating the plates. "And I am _still_ feeding him to you."

The meat sits just under Will's nose on the tip of his fork. He looks at Hannibal and places it into his mouth, savoring each pass over his tongue. 

"Okay," he says, swallowing. "But, just stated for the record, pumping me with party drugs is cheating."

"Theories of psychology aside, all of us are the simple result of chemical reactions in our brains. Chemical intervention is, in my opinion, entirely within bounds. Your treatment was carefully constructed for optimal therapeutic effect. Why follow rules when you may write them?" Hannibal takes a satisfied taste of his own breakfast, savoring just as Will had.

Will shakes his head and knows that no matter how he feels --damn near euphoric, at the moment-- he's only sinking deeper. He should finish what he failed on the cliffside.

But today he won't.


End file.
